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"Redefining the Line: The Making of One Hundred and One Dalmatians" (Walt Disney's DVD Bonus) — Transcript

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0:00- Ohhh!
0:02[howling]
0:04- [screeching] - [barking]
0:06They're somewhere in this village, and we're going to find them.
0:09- Now get going! - [man] Hundred and One Dalmatians
0:12is the most modern Disney animated movie ever.
0:14The one that has the most guts, that says, "This is art."
0:18But it's entertainment at the same time.
0:20[man] Hundred and One Dalmatians was a huge influence.
0:23I like the look of it, the story, characters.
0:26There was something just very fresh and novel.
0:28- What's he going to do, Dad? - Shh.
0:32Let's just wait and see.
0:34[man] One thing that sets the movie apart
0:36from a lot of movies in the Disney canon
0:39is it's a contemporary story made to play in that time period.
0:43The cool thing about it is that it's contemporary to this day.
0:47It's contemporary in a classical way.
0:50Hundred and One Dalmatians was the first Disney animated film
0:54that was more than just fantasy.
0:57It was a mystery, there was suspense.
0:59You were worried about whether these characters were going to come through.
1:03I'll skin every one of them spotted hyenas, if it's the last thing I do.
1:07[man] Also, we had the new technology, the Xerox process.
1:10It was going to replace the old ink and paint. So that was exciting.
1:14You see in Hundred and One Dalmatians mature animators doing
1:18some of the best work of their lives.
1:20Yet you see Walt Disney mourning the fact
1:22that he has to let go of this beautiful, romantic style he loved
1:25in favor of a simpler style that's representative of mid-20th century art.
1:29[Deja] It's not your usual children's book illustration come to life.
1:33It's Picasso coming into Disney.
1:36[woman] Still, our hearts are touched and I'm very, very lucky
1:40that I was part of something so wonderful.
1:45[barking]
1:59Dodie Smith published her story, The Hundred and One Dalmatians
2:02in 1956.
2:04The story was inspired by the fact
2:05that she, herself, had Dalmatian dogs.
2:08The first of which was called Pongo. And a friend of hers, quite casually
2:12and not maliciously, as Cruella De Vil might have said,
2:15that, yes, those dogs would make rather a good coat.
2:18The story immediately caught Walt Disney's imagination.
2:21This was a time of great growth at the studio,
2:23and Walt Disney was so involved in other things...
2:26He had television, the theme parks,
2:29that animation got a little less of Walt's time.
2:32And so he put into effect this idea of taking a very strong story guy,
2:37Bill Peet, and basically having him leading this feature film.
2:41Now, Bill Peet came to Disney in 1937.
2:44Jobs were scarce and he heard that Disney was looking for artists,
2:47so he came and he started working as an in-betweener.
2:50Which meant you were way down the line.
2:52Assist with the final drawings of the characters.
2:55[Hahn] The gruntwork. It was the bottom rung of the ladder,
2:58which frustrated him to no end.
3:00Bill was driven and knew he wanted to be a story person.
3:03And when he got his chances, like on Dumbo...
3:05Some amazing scenes in Dumbo, when the elephant's
3:08getting a bath and his mother's bathing him. It was beautifully drawn.
3:13No dialogue, beautifully laid out by Bill Peet
3:16Later, his work is seen in pretty much every Disney movie.
3:20He became this very senior story person.
3:23[Clements] People don't even know what story men are
3:25because the work that they do is never seen on the screen,
3:29but before any animation is done it's all storyboarded.
3:32It's kind of like a comic strip which tells the story sequentially
3:36from cut to cut.
3:37When we did movies like Lion King or Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin,
3:41we had 15 people on the story crew.
3:43Bill Peet did it by himself.
3:46I had a chance to go to the archives and look at his story sketches
3:51and compare them one after the other.
3:54You follow these sketches and you go,
3:57"I'll be... This is impossible. They didn't change a thing."
4:00This is exactly the way Bill Peet had envisioned it.
4:04He missed him. Ol' Thunder's pretending... I think.
4:08Bill Peet was a master storyteller, and he structured this story
4:12to make it a story that is so focused, so controlled,
4:15so centered on these dogs and their quest to get their puppies back,
4:19that you follow the story with an effortlessness.
4:22And, I think, they tightened it in a way that really works.
4:25So much so, in fact, that Dodie Smith wrote to Bill Peet
4:29and said that he had in fact, improved on her book.
4:32Which is quite a compliment when you think about it.
4:34He was able to put flesh on the bones of what was in that children's book,
4:38and create the characters we know today.
4:40[man] And the way the characters interact in it have a Bill Peet touch.
4:44Kind of a modern sensibility to it.
4:47It's one of the things that makes that movie unique, how contemporary it was.
4:51That was the first time where,
4:53here's a married couple that clearly is physical toward each other.
4:57And there's a flirtation going on.
5:00When he's pulling her around and going,
5:03♪ Cruella, Cruella De Vil ♪
5:05You know, I love that.
5:07These are characters we hadn't seen in a Disney film.
5:10Cruella De Vil smokes cigarettes,
5:12the dogs watch television.
5:14It was very "of the moment." That was a great departure,
5:17not only storywise, but stylistically.
5:19We were all very excited about it. Mainly, because it was so different.
5:23It was different from what had been done at Disney before.
5:27It really broke new ground for Disney's animation department.
5:33[Finn] Hundred and One Dalmatians was groundbreaking.
5:36It's really the first Disney animated feature
5:39that's isn't really a musical in any way.
5:42It's interesting that Dalmatians has so few songs in it.
5:46It's a real break with what had just come at the Disney studio.
5:50[Finn] It's ironic because Roger's vocation is songwriter.
5:53You'd think that'd be an excuse to have a lot of great Disney songs.
5:56It just shows you how Walt Disney was never any kind of a slave
6:01to any formula, even if it worked well before.
6:03[man] The songs in Hundred and One Dalmatians were written by Mel Leven.
6:07Though the song Cruella De Vil is the most memorable song from the movie,
6:12Mel Leven actually wrote a song prior to this one for Cruella.
6:17[man singing] ♪ Now every night I almost go insane ♪
6:21♪ I hear those witches chanting in my brain ♪
6:26♪ Cruel, cruel, Cruella Devil, devil, De Vil ♪
6:30♪ Cruel, cruel, Cruella Devil, devil, De Vil ♪
6:36But driving to work one day Mel thought,
6:38"You know, a blues tempo would really fit that character."
6:41So he came up with that melody line.
6:44So he replaced his prior song himself.
6:48[Roger singing] ♪ You come to realize ♪
6:50♪ You've seen her kind of eyes ♪
6:52♪ Watching you from underneath a rock ♪
6:56The last song, Dalmatian Plantation,
7:00was exchanged because Bill Peet
7:02wanted a different version of it.
7:04[Schroeder] Peet wanted to end the movie
7:06with a song that emphasized rhymes,
7:08and so he asked Mel to replace the song he had written.
7:12[Roger] ♪ With all of our remuneration ♪
7:16♪ Our station seems truly sublime ♪
7:19♪ At my occupation I'll find inspiration ♪
7:23[Anita] ♪ With no obligation to time ♪
7:26Dalmatian Plantation one was replaced with Dalmatian Plantation number two.
7:31♪ Dalmatian plantation home ♪
7:39[Schroeder] Mel wrote Kanine Krunchies
7:41as an absolute spoof of current commercials on television.
7:45Taking it as far as he could to its silliness.
7:48♪ ...the whole day through ♪
7:49♪ You can be a champion too if you eat Kanine Krunchies ♪
7:53[Perk] There are not so many songs in Hundred and One Dalmatians,
7:57but there is a lot of musical feeling in the film.
8:01George Bruns's score is very much
8:04a soundscape to which the film played.
8:07He really deserves great respect. He tells the story with his music.
8:11Starting with the opening when it says, "One Hundred and One Dalmatians,"
8:15- his score goes... - [trumpets performing]
8:21And, later in the movie, when Cruella shows up
8:23and starts to notice that all the Labradors in the scene
8:27might be Dalmatians, he writes this incredibly suspenseful cue
8:32that echoes the water drops coming off of the roof.
8:43It was the first time Disney actually did a feature
8:45that was not set in the world of classic or fairy tale.
8:50So it's a contemporary score because it's a contemporary film.
8:54It wasn't the traditional orchestral score.
8:57It was a more jazzy thing.
8:59It was really clicking in to the current sensibilities
9:03in many different ways,
9:05which is quite different for a Disney film.
9:08[orchestra playing]
9:17Well, for years, Disney films had been inked and painted by hand.
9:21Sleeping Beauty was the end of an era in many ways.
9:25And it was the last hand-inked, hand-painted film.
9:30Now, Disney animation, as most people know,
9:33the animators draw in pencil
9:34and then it went to the inking and painting department.
9:38[Hahn] You took an animators drawing, put cells over the drawing,
9:41clear plastic sheets, and hand-traced it with multiple colors.
9:45So Aurora in Sleeping Beauty
9:47would have this beautiful yellow line around her hair.
9:50She'd have this fleshy line around her face
9:52and her lips would even be a separate ink color.
9:55It was so difficult, and then you'd watch these girls,
9:58and they couldn't put their hand down on it because they'd smear the ink.
10:02And they would do these wonderful sweeps
10:05and follow the line just so. It was marvelous to watch them work.
10:09They were really exquisite at what they did.
10:13[Sigman] Then it would be turned over and painted,
10:15and that becomes the cell that you see on-screen.
10:18It's very laborious, very time-consuming and expensive.
10:22Following Sleeping Beauty, the studio was in a real difficult situation.
10:26Sleeping Beauty hadn't made very much money and it cost a fortune.
10:30Disney was desperately trying to cut back.
10:33Here's this studio that was built by animation and was, maybe,
10:36getting priced out of the animation business.
10:39[Sibley] People were always saying,
10:41"Forget about the animation, you're in television,
10:44you're making live-action movies. You've got a theme park."
10:47But Disney had to make animated films because that's what he did.
10:51But how to do it cheaper.
10:53[Sigman] Ub Iwerks was Walt's, perhaps, oldest friend.
10:56He had been Walt's first business partner
10:59back in 1922 in Kansas City when Walt started Laugh-O-Grams.
11:04Ub was the man who animated Mickey Mouse
11:08in Plane Crazy and Galloping Gaucho and Steamboat Willie.
11:17He was also a mechanical genius.
11:19Ub Iwerks invented a lot of things
11:22which were of vast importance for the studio.
11:25Like the multiplane camera which gave depth to the films.
11:30Like the sodium screen process
11:33to be able to marry together the elements
11:35in live-action and animation
11:37like you see, for instance, in Mary Poppins.
11:39[Don Iwerks] Well, my dad, Ub Iwerks,
11:41got to thinking about how could we save some money.
11:44And one of the things that occurred to him is that the Xerox process,
11:49which they were coming out with these little copiers on the market,
11:54that, maybe, he could transfer an image onto a cell
11:57as opposed to a piece of paper.
11:59He went out and did some experimenting, and it seemed to work fine.
12:03Xerox process, pretty simple. Operates like your average office copier.
12:08In those days the Xerox machine they used took up three rooms.
12:11You have the lens and an electrostatically charged plate.
12:14The lens'd take a picture of the drawing and transfer it to that plate.
12:18Plate'd get dipped in toner, and the toner'd be transferred to a clear cell.
12:22We started using it sneakily in Sleeping Beauty.
12:27And it was in the dragon sequence.
12:33Now sword of truth, fly swift and sure,
12:35that evil die and good endure!
12:38[Hahn] We wanted to do a test case to see how Xerox worked
12:41and how it'd look on screen.
12:43They tried it out on a short called Goliath II.
12:45I'll show ya, Pop!
12:52[Deja] Xerox didn't cut the quality of the animation.
12:55They didn't do limited animation, it's still a fully animated film.
12:58The acting is still there, it's still subtle.
13:01[Mattinson] And it worked fine, so it gave everybody confidence that,
13:05"Hey, we could do this with Xerox."
13:09I think it must have been...
13:12...awful, at the time, to be an inker
13:16when Xerox opened because you were out of a job all of a sudden.
13:20[Alice Davis] I think it was the best ink and paint department
13:23that ever existed on this Earth.
13:25And I cried when they closed it down.
13:29I think we did lose something because the Xerox line lacked the subtlety
13:33of the ink line which was incredible.
13:37But, on the other hand,
13:38it was the gaining of the quality
13:41of the animator's drawings.
13:43Especially in the way it was done in this film.
13:47Don't you dare go up there, you big, long-legged lummox!
13:50So I guess one could debate those points back and forth.
13:54Was Xerox a step forward or a step backwards?
13:58[Hahn] Over the next 50 years the Xerox process didn't go away,
14:02it became a... not only cost effective way
14:04to make animated films, but became more sophisticated.
14:07You could use color Xerox lines.
14:09And, eventually, it was supplanted with a computer which could use
14:13complete color lines which got back to the look of original inked movies.
14:17So, again, Dalmatians becomes a real crossroads of technology meets art
14:22in a very, very clever way.
14:28The Xerox worked well with the Dalmatians because
14:31they were black and white.
14:33You just needed a very easy outline of them.
14:37There's correlation between the characters themselves,
14:40being Dalmatians that are black and white,
14:43and then the very strong black lines of the Xerox process
14:46that was used to transfer the animators' drawings onto cells.
14:52The animators loved the process
14:54because rather than passing through
14:56the hands of other people to interpret their line drawings,
14:59they were finally seeing what was on their drawing board
15:02put up on the screen.
15:05[man] Well, we were delighted.
15:06The Xerox process was a delight, really, for the animator.
15:10At least we felt at the time.
15:12Because this was the first time we ever saw our drawings directly on the screen.
15:16You old rascal!
15:18There was, apparently, a memo that went around at Disney saying,
15:22"Please make your drawings neat. Don't show your construction,
15:26your roughs, underneath there because those drawings
15:29are going right onto the screen."
15:31So the assistants had to go through and clean up the drawings.
15:34Of course, this must've been nerve wracking
15:37if you were working for someone great, Frank Thomas
15:40or Milt Kahl, who had done these amazing drawings.
15:43And then you have to go with your own pencil and mess with it...
15:48[Bird] Milt Kahl became militant
15:50about the people following them up
15:53reducing the rough lines.
15:55Milt made them kind of stay away from that.
15:58So in some Milt Kahl scenes you start to see glimpses of construction lines.
16:02I've heard stories of Milt Kahl exploding
16:05because somebody changed his drawings.
16:07And, as time went on, Milt was able to hold on more and more
16:11to his exact drawing.
16:13[Sibley] Several of the Nine Old Men worked on Hundred and One Dalmatians.
16:16Wolfgang Reitherman, who later directed The Sword and the Stone
16:20and then The Jungle Book, directed the Twilight Bark,
16:22one of the most magical scenes in the film.
16:25The humans tried everything. Now it's up to us dogs and the Twilight Bark.
16:29I'll sound the alert!
16:31[barking]
16:33One of the first dogs that picks up on the Twilight Bark alert
16:38is this little Scottish Terrier, and it's Jock from Lady and the Tramp.
16:42The first moment you see him, it's the original, cleaned up drawing
16:46which was then inked and painted.
16:48Then he transitions into a little bit more of the rougher, looser styling.
16:53[barks, howls]
16:54[Sigman] And we pass along and we see a pet shop.
16:57And in the pet shop are Bull and Peg from Lady and the Tramp.
17:02Just before the scene leaves, Lady comes into the picture.
17:06So it's really fun to look for.
17:08[Mattinson] Woolie was famous for reusing footage. He'd reuse anything.
17:12In fact, everybody was aghast when he wound up using
17:15Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in the dance sequence in Robin Hood.
17:20And it's like, "Oh, my God, you wouldn't!"
17:22It's not done extensively in this, but Woolie was very proud
17:26of his knowledge of old Disney animation,
17:29and how it might apply within the context of a new production.
17:42The other animators that worked on Hundred and One Dalmatians
17:45were some very famous people.
17:48Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston worked on the dogs.
17:52Frank did an amazing scene where the little puppy, um, is stillborn.
17:57[clock ticking]
18:00[thunderclap]
18:03And that's incredible, subtle, animation
18:07Look, Pongo.
18:11There's a scene which Ollie Johnston often talked about,
18:14which was where Perdita hides from Cruella De Vil
18:17under a stove in the kitchen.
18:18And the whole scene is conducted with Perdita in the corner.
18:22She can scarcely move. Wonderful animation.
18:25[man] So it's very restrictive as far as action.
18:27You couldn't move her head much or anything,
18:30but in the end I think that was the best way to handle the sequence.
18:35Oh, Pongo.
18:36And what moves we did put on them,
18:40I think, paid off.
18:41Particularly the one at the end
18:43where he gives her that little kiss.
18:46[crying]
18:49We've always felt that touching was very important in animation.
18:52And taking these little pencil drawings and having them touch
18:56has a big impact on the audience if it's done right.
19:00Milt Kahl did Anita and Roger.
19:03[man] Actually, Anita had actually been done by somebody else.
19:07[Mattinson] It was in the picture for a while and Walt looked at it and said,
19:11"We gotta redesign her."
19:12And who did they give it to? Milt, of course.
19:17Milt just got a design and he just sat there
19:20and he just did it, and it was perfect.
19:22I like to think that Anita was really based on me.
19:25If you see pictures of me posing, you will see Anita.
19:30You know, as you did a line, and the natural way that you projected,
19:35they really watched you do that. And you could see it in the character.
19:39Oh, Roger! You were magnificent, darling.
19:42I mean, I know I keep saying, "It's tea time, Roger," but it's that one line,
19:46that when I do it I see the inclination of my head
19:50Roger, dear, tea time.
19:52I see the way I do it in the movie.
19:54[Clements] The straighter, attractive heroine...
19:56Milt got that job a lot because they had to be drawn really, really well,
20:00but you could never exaggerate too much.
20:02They had to be handled very straight.
20:05Take mine.
20:06[both chuckle]
20:08[man] You can do anything you want with animals.
20:12Because we're doing animals
20:13doing things that animals don't do.
20:15For instance, facial expressions and dialogue, everything.
20:19People aren't used to watching animals doing this, so they're not critical,
20:23but they're used to watching people that move around and talk
20:27and do everything and become very, very critical of them.
20:30- You know? - Ooh!
20:32This was another scene that grabbed my attention as a kid,
20:36another Milt Kahl scene.
20:37It's just this beautiful arc that he does with the hands.
20:41A ballet, almost. A fumbling with this pipe.
20:46Steady, boy.
20:47And then you have Cruella De Vil.
20:50What a great character.
20:52Everything about her just fires on all cylinders.
20:54Marc Davis' genius at drawing Cruella De Vil.
20:59The police are everywhere. I want the job done tonight!
21:05This was really one of the most fun assignments I've ever had in the studio.
21:11She was a funny villainess.
21:13While, what she was doing wasn't nice,
21:15she, herself, was an entertaining character.
21:18Anita, you're such a wit.
21:21This also happens to be the last animation
21:23I ever did on a Disney film.
21:26Marc Davis, of course, was known
21:28for not only designing Cruella De Vil,
21:31but also single-handedly animated her throughout the film.
21:37Dalmatians is influential to everybody
21:40that works as an animator now.
21:43It's such a great combination of real knowledge,
21:47in terms of human motion, emotion,
21:50animal anatomy, locomotion.
21:52I mean, these guys are really at the top of their game.
21:55This crew, this Milt Kahl, Frank, Ollie.
21:57It's just so well-crafted that animators just kind of go crazy over it.
22:02[Lisa Davis] Everything you see, the faces, the characters,
22:06the way they were drawn, it is so incredibly beautiful.
22:11It's... It's art. It's truly art.
22:17- [horn honking] - [tires screeching]
22:20The way the cars are animated in the movie
22:22is so funny because they have personalities.
22:25The way Horace and Jasper's van sort of rattles when it
22:28comes around the corner, just has as much character as they do.
22:32Ub Iwerks had this interesting idea that, "OK, I'm using a Xerox camera
22:35to translate pencil lines drawn on paper into line work on cells.
22:40Why can't I have that camera look at a line
22:43that's drawn on the edge of a model?"
22:45So what they did, was actually build a car out of cardboard
22:49and put black lines along all the edges.
22:52[Hahn] And to make the wheels articulate,
22:54they would take a long piece of cloth and tape little pieces of wooden dowling
22:59underneath it, and then put the car on top of the cloth,
23:02suspend it from a kite string, and then pull this long piece of fabric
23:06with these pieces of wooden dowling underneath the wheels.
23:09They'd shoot a take of that.
23:10Because they put the springs in there,
23:13the thing would have this little rumbling and so forth.
23:17[Hahn] Those film clips were transferred directly to a Xerox plate.
23:21They were painted, and what you see on the screen
23:24is that model zipping around, and it's pretty darn cool.
23:31You idiots!
23:33You know, think of the digital paradigm.
23:35Today, the way we can study movement and study three-dimensional objects.
23:40Well, we were doing that in a very crude way
23:42with these model cars, but it worked, and it worked very well.
23:46I look back on it now and, for the time, it was a really neat idea.
23:50There's a scene when Cruella goes off the bridge into the ravine,
23:53towards the end of the movie. Her car is struggling up the side of the hill.
23:58It was done kind of the same.
23:59They had the model of the car,
24:01and they covered this kind of model hillside with sand.
24:05They shot it in slow-motion,
24:06and the snow, in this case the sand in the scene,
24:10would start to slip back down the bank,
24:12and that's what you see in the film.
24:14That process of shooting the live models with that black outline
24:17was something forged during those days of Hundred and One Dalmatians.
24:21It's a clever idea, it was an idea to save money,
24:24but it's an incredible effect when you look at it,
24:26and those vehicles are so cool, even to this day.
24:33[horn honking]
24:35We also had a unit, actually, that did just the spots.
24:40Chuck Jones said, "Only Disney would animate a movie
24:44called A Hundred and One Dalmatians
24:46with six million spots. He said, "At Warner Brothers we couldn't do a movie
24:50with a dog named Spot that had one spot."
24:53So it was a pretty crazy idea to do A Hundred and One Dalmatians.
24:57[Perk] You have all these statistics.
24:59That the puppies had 32 spots and Pongo had 76,
25:02and Perdita had 69 or something like that.
25:05It adds a lot of work to do this.
25:09[Hahn] So a crew had to go in and actually draw all that.
25:12And it was, uh, completely insane.
25:17[Bird] One Hundred and One Dalmatians starts right off,
25:20from the very beginning...
25:21[all barking]
25:23...and plays with the idea of the spot.
25:27Let's face it, if you're going to stylize a dog,
25:29what dog's more stylized than a Dalmatian?
25:34I mean, it's practically a Sixties magazine illustrator's
25:37version of a dog.
25:39[Mattinson] The opening credits were very elaborate.
25:42And those spots... You know... Blink, blink, blink, all around.
25:45It was a great opening for a picture.
25:49You'll find all these puns about spot.
25:53The spots will be smoke coming out of a passing trawler.
25:58Spots will become musical notes
26:00because it involves the songwriter
26:03and what is music but spots on a page.
26:08It's just this very whimsical title sequence that automatically shows you
26:12the animators are in a playful mood.
26:15[barking]
26:16And that you're going to have a visually delightful film.
26:19I just think it's one of the greatest things ever done.
26:33[Clements] The Xerox process was designed, somewhat, to save money,
26:37but for whatever reason, and I don't actually know
26:40if it was planned or not,
26:41I think this whole Xerox process was perfect
26:44for this story and this movie.
26:46It sprung, partially, out of necessity, but it forced them
26:49to make a lot of really good choices.
26:52And I give the lion's share of that credit to Ken Anderson for that.
26:56Ken Anderson was a design genius
26:58going all the way back to the Silly Symphonies.
27:01He had his big breakthrough on Ferdinand the Bull.
27:04He just had certain ideas of how it should be painted,
27:07and it was a little more involved than some of the earlier Silly Symphonies.
27:11The overall art director said, "Walt is going to hate this.
27:15We never had colorful backgrounds like this."
27:17But Walt loved those backgrounds.
27:20[Sigman] Ken Anderson in Hundred and One Dalmatians
27:22brought a whole different look.
27:24Very angular and abstract.
27:28It's very modern in its look.
27:31It was the first use of, uh, of Xerox line
27:35in any kind of feature picture.
27:37I personally loved the idea of seeing an animation drawing in Xerox.
27:41Then I tried to make it one world by doing the same thing with backgrounds.
27:45[man] What Ken was looking for was a design
27:48that would bring the backgrounds and animation together.
27:51I've seen some of the backgrounds and they're wonderful layouts
27:55which are fairly, what would you say, traditionally drawn.
27:59[Bird] And a guy named Ernie Nordli went over the backgrounds
28:03and made perfect, symmetrical things a little bit asymmetrical.
28:07And fattened some things up.
28:09Gave it a little more of a caricatured quality.
28:12It's a subtle effect. His drawings were then Xeroxed and placed over
28:16the background painting to bring it all together and make it all feel
28:21like it had the same graphic quality
28:23of the foreground characters.
28:25- Anita, darling! - How are you?
28:28Miserable as usual. Perfectly wretched!
28:32In one of the early shots of Hundred and One Dalmatians,
28:35when Pongo is sitting on the window seat, there's a magazine there.
28:38People may not know what it means. It was called Lilliput.
28:42It featured work of all kinds of graphic artists of the 1950s and 60s.
28:46It's not by chance that Lilliput's in that scene.
28:48Because that is the style of this film.
28:51I say! Now, there's a fancy breed.
28:54Ken Anderson worked closely with a guy named Walt Peregoy
28:58who's a really opinionated, strong, fantastic artist.
29:03Walt's fine art paintings are highly collectible and desirable
29:07out in the art market right now.
29:09[Sigman] Walt Peregoy would put these blotches of color on
29:13that would loosely represent a doorway
29:17or loosely represent a couch.
29:19There's something very sophisticated about using the impression of a shape
29:23to be where your color is defined.
29:26While it looks simpler,
29:27it's actually very hard to do well.
29:31And Walt Peregoy had a real knack for that and, I think,
29:35Ken Anderson recognized that in Peregoy and let him go to town.
29:39His personality was so off-the-wall
29:42that he couldn't be confined to
29:46painting very neat, precise images,
29:50and that's what came out in his work.
29:52Ken Anderson said I was the guy that was gonna do style.
29:57And Ken knew me...
30:01and nobody tells me what to do.
30:03If I want to wipe out a line, I'd wipe out a line.
30:06Nobody controlled what the finished product... The backgrounds were mine.
30:10I think what Ken Anderson, Walt Peregoy, gave us with Dalmatians,
30:15really fit that story.
30:16And I think it's a great looking film.
30:18Then we find out, much to our surprise,
30:20that Walt was not that pleased with it.
30:22And poor Ken Anderson, uh, boy,
30:25he really suffered for that film
30:28because having Walt being displeased with your work
30:32was probably the worst thing that could happen to any Disney artist.
30:35[man] I'm a huge fan of Ken Anderson.
30:37He's been my hero from the beginning of the time that I started in animation.
30:41It's almost tragic that Walt Disney
30:44did not like the look of the film.
30:47What's the matter with you two?
30:49You got cloth ears?
30:51I said you're not coming in here!
30:53[Hahn] It's ironic 'cause we see it as a masterpiece of art direction.
30:57Walt was a romantic. I know he loved the style
31:00of the Peter Pan's and the Cinderella's,
31:02and the Snow White's and Pinocchio's.
31:04I think Walt mourned the fact that he was losing this lush,
31:09beautiful tapestry kind of look to his films.
31:12And Walt Disney never quite forgave Ken
31:16until the very end of his life.
31:18Walt came into the studio and I was grateful and glad to see him.
31:21I said, "Gee, it's good to see you."
31:23And he said, "It's sure good to be here."
31:26And then he looked at me, penetratingly, with his eyes
31:29and I knew that he was forgiving me
31:32for this thing I had done on Dalmatians.
31:37He didn't say anything,
31:39but I know I was forgiven.
31:40That, as far as he was concerned,
31:42it wasn't so bad after all.
31:46So it meant a lot to me.
31:47Then I found out, of course, two weeks later he was gone.
31:52[Schroeder] Audiences loved Dalmatians,
31:54and critics loved Dalmatians.
31:56They found it unpretentious, and it got among some of the best reviews
32:00of any Disney feature since Dumbo.
32:02They're all here, the little dears.
32:05- It's a miracle! - What a wonderful Christmas present!
32:08We look at it now, we wouldn't want it any other way.
32:11It's the way it should be.
32:15[Clements] Hundred and One Dalmatians was enormously successful
32:19so in that sense I think it really kind of helped the medium through
32:22a kind of a difficult period.
32:26There was something fresh about it that got people excited again.
32:30Sometimes you can take the medium for granted,
32:33especially with the excellent work that was done film after film.
32:37Sometimes something new comes along
32:39and kind of re-invigorates things.
32:41I think Hundred and One Dalmatians did that.
32:44I love Dalmatians, personally. I think it's wonderful.
32:47I thought it was a great picture, I really did.
32:51Dalmatians seemed to be the right film at the right time.
32:54It just pushed the studio forward in a new direction.
32:57It was great being there, and it was great working on that film.
33:00And it was great watching all of this happen, you know, right before you.
33:05It was a great time.
33:07[Lisa Davis] It's part of my life, and I didn't realize
33:10the degree of the magic that I was involved in
33:14at the time I made the movie. I'm very, very lucky to have that.
33:18I feel like it is a legacy,
33:20that I was part of something so wonderful.
33:23[Finn] One Hundred and One Dalmatians remains,
33:25even though it's 40 years later,
33:27it remains as contemporary as it ever was.
33:30It's one of the most casual and light-hearted of all the Disney movies,
33:34and I think that's one of the things that makes it so entertaining
33:37decade after decade and for decades to come.
33:39I'm sure my grandchildren will be watching this movie and
33:43delighting in it the way I did when I was two and it was brand new.
33:46So it's nice to know that it goes on and on.

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